Why You Should Only Push on Doors that Open

byMartin Malden

The more people you talk to about a Network Marketing business, the more likely you are to come across someone, even if they’ve agreed to your request for a meeting, who has absolutely no intention becoming part of your business but is absolutely dead set on getting you into theirs.

Here’s how I deal with it.

A couple of times recently, I’ve contacted people who agreed to meet me, but who had clearly decided well before the meeting that they were not going to do anything other than sell me on their opportunity.

As rude as that is (if I invite someone to a meeting I do expect them to at least listen to what I have to say), it will happen to you. Probably several times.

I had one such conversation on Monday, and once I’d cooled down, I realised two things:

I am always going to come into contact with people like that

I wouldn’t want to have to work with, and coach, someone like that!

Here’s what led up to last week’s meeting:

I’d received an invitation to a Meetup.com event for the Wednesday evening but I wasn’t able to attend. When I browsed through the people who had said they were going I saw someone whose profile said they were a wellness coach and aromatherapist.

And that, I thought to myself, would be an ideal person to bring into my business: into wellness coaching and wellness products but not in direct competition with our products.

So I shot off an email asking to meet her sometime other than at the meetup because I couldn’t attend it, and I got a positive reply in which she asked about my business.

So I sent her the link to this site, which she had obviously looked around by the time we met.

And when we met on Monday here’s how the conversation went:

Her: So your products are all natural, right..?

Me: Yes

Her: So they have to be kept in the fridge..?

Me: Yes

Her: How long have you been in Hong Kong..?

Me: 18 years

Her: So you will know, then, that Chinese people don’t like to drink cold drinks? That means your product won’t do very well here…

Me: Well there are a couple of things you can do: you can pour it into a glass and leave it for a while to warm up or you can dilute it with warm water.

Her: (after a long pause) Chinese people don’t like taking oral supplements because they don’t know what’s inside them.

Me: Ah, OK, well there’s not much I can do about that!

She then immediately started a sales pitch for Do Terra (essential oils). Thankfully, I have a friend in Texas who’s a Do Terra distributor so I told her that I knew all about Do Terra products and the business because I’d discussed both with him on several occasions.

I then politely suggested that, since neither of us were interested in the other’s products or business, we should, perhaps, end the meeting and move on – which we did.

As I said at the beginning, I was initially irritated but, equally, it was a good lesson:

There’s no point in trying to persuade people who already have a fixed agenda, especially when it’s different from yours.

We need to find people who are open to both the products and the business (although in my case I focus on the products first). And, if they’re not, then thank them and move quickly on.

Which leads me back to the title of this post: I only like to push on doors that open. Pushing on doors that won’t open just leads to frustration.

I can see why this lead to frustration on your part. I agree with you on being open to products. This shouldn’t have to be a pitch fest and she should have been open with you from the beginning rather than wasting your time and then when she had an opening, pitch you on her products. Over the years, I’ve realized that we’re all in this direct selling and network marketing profession and that we all need to come together rather than playing the “mines is better than yours” game. Instead, share what we have, and add value instead of trying to earn a quick buck.

In the end we just hurt ourselves and also when relationships are cultivated between networkers that are not part of the same company, they will always be open to sharing your product or services with someone they know because of the friendships that have been built.

I absolutely agree – and I would have been very happy to refer people to her products if they were a better fit than mine.

The trouble was that she was so careful to make sure I knew that she didn’t think my products would work here that I figured any co-operation we set up would have been all one-way! Not sure what you’d call that – mono-operation maybe..!? 🙂

Good health is your greatest asset! Martin is a WordPress developer and Network Marketing professional who uses and advocates natural treatments wherever possible. Contact him - he'd love to hear from you!